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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24859198">Tanaras</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearwind/pseuds/wearwind'>wearwind</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Verdant Wind [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>A Year in Seasons, Ambition, Arthurian, Domestic, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Happy Ending, Once and Future King, Post-Canon, Post-War, Sweet and Sad and Sweet Again, building a house, rustic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 08:14:12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,610</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24859198</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearwind/pseuds/wearwind</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Would you like to hear the legend of Tanaras?” he asks one evening, as Byleth pours the old wax into a candle form, and she nods. “So - you know that this is an old place.”</p><p>“The oldest,” she says. “I've heard there is a sword in its bedrock." </p><p>“Yes," he says. "But it has never been drawn. It's meant to be the great balance-bringer. The one thing that will pull the world together, when it will most need it." He pauses, thoughtful. "If it were ever a weapon more powerful than the Sword of the Creator, it is the sword of Tanaras. The first sword, or the maker of kings.” </p><p>Or: after the war, Byleth spends a year looking for peace.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>My Unit | Byleth/Claude von Riegan, Second Relationship Tag a Spoiler</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Verdant Wind [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1734619</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>60</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Tanaras</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iris_the_Messenger/gifts">Iris_the_Messenger</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This doesn't exactly sit in my headcanon for Claude/Byleth, but it demanded to be written, so... well. <b>If you're here from the series continuity, just assume this is outside of it.</b></p><p>Happy birthday, Iris &lt;3 don't hate me. All the softs in there are for you &lt;3</p><p> </p><p>  <b>IMPORTANT CONTENT WARNING IS A SPOILER, GO TO THE END NOTES IF YOU WISH TO SEE IT.</b></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Tanaras,</strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>or the one worthy to be king</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>In days that passed so long ago,</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>A weapon was divinely placed</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>Into a rock and would bestow</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>The Kingship on a worthy face.</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>Fourscore men of noble blood</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>Tried to tame the mythic blade.</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>Every one, his efforts dud,</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>So in the stone the sword did stay.</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>Upon it came a boy alone</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>Who placed his hand upon its hilt</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>And drew it out, earning the throne</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>Upon which Britain’s greatness built.</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    
  </p>
  <p>Matt Lanka, <em>Excalibur</em></p>
</blockquote><p>
  
</p><p>
  <strong>summer</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>He is not a proud man – but it <em>is</em> a point of pride to have built their house with his own hands. Their little slab of land, where the chill of Faerghus gives way to the more balmy winds of the east, has borne his labours graciously: the pine forests offered the wood, the old quarries the stone, the bottom of the clear-watered Tanaras the fine sand for mortar. When he’d begun, Byleth looked at him with confused indulgence, and asked whether he would like the assistance of the Seirosian monks; they were well-versed in masonry, she said, and their house would be sturdier for it. He laughed and conceded the point, but asked for no assistance even so. The war had been the time of destruction, and against his will had made him a killer and a destroyer; he would build now.</p><p>Now their little cottage of oak and pine stands – no, does not yet stand proud, more peeks out of the tall grass among the swathes of dandelion and chamomile, little more than another wildflower smelling of tinder and sap. Its windows reflect sunlight like Tanaras’s steady surface. Their overlook his new battlefield, a new challenge taken up now that the house is comfortable for them both: a garden to be wrangled out of the overgrown bush.</p><p>Moonflowers and roses twine up and down the pergola where Byleth sits. Even from a distance, he can sense their honey-sweet smell carried with the warm eastern breeze. She’s swaying softly on the rocking chair, a tome spread out on her lap; but the breeze is the one turning the pages, for his wife’s eyes are fixed on the nebulous mountains on the horizon, a half-smile turning her still face warm. Deep in thought, and better for it.</p><p>(Whatever she sees, he hopes it is kind. They are now far away from the war, politics, kings and archbishops; he would carry them farther still.)</p><p>The shears click smoothly in his hands as he tears his way through the stubborn holly overgrowth. It almost feels bad; the berries are swollen already, heavy and blushing with late-summer colour. But he is more than aware of the many, <em>many </em>songbirds that would take keen interest in anything he’ll remove from the precariously thorny bushes. And besides; everything that falls gives way to new growth. Gardening is the opposite of war.</p><p>He feels more than sees Byleth’s eyes on his neck. Turning, he gives her a smile; and has the unique pleasure of seeing her face light up, as much with joy as with relief. He knows that particular brand of respite well: to break out of a daydream to see the world still at peace.</p><p>He scoops a handful of spilt berries from the ground and, with an archer’s flourish, tosses them at her. The breeze scatters them in the air, but a few make it to her. Byleth flicks an unerring wrist to block them.</p><p>“Sloppy,” she says. He laughs.</p><p> </p><p>*** <strong>summer to autumn</strong></p><p> </p><p>The thorns of holly leaves prickle his gloves as he cuts them, sometimes hard enough to draw blood; blackberries coil around his ankles, catching his step, while tall nettles and poison ivy swipe at every exposed inch of skin with unforgiving burning lashes. He battles them as best he can, pruning and shearing and cussing his way through the thick shrubbery, but when he falls into bed in the night, he is red and prickly and stinging all over.</p><p>It never lasts the night. When he wakes up, his skin is smooth and intact. After the war he knows the aftertaste of her healing spells well enough, but she doesn’t mention it, so he doesn’t either.</p><p> </p><p>***</p><p>
  <strong>autumn</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>“Let me,” he offers as he sits at her feet, watching the gentle sag of the wood as she rocks in her chair. The warm autumn rains pour on the half-wild garden around them, their hair damp and sticky. Byleth passes him the book, corners of her lips rising at what must be unrestrained pleasure on his own face, and leans back with eyes fluttering closed.</p><p>The cover of the book is sturdy under his calloused fingers. He strokes it with the back of his hand, revelling in the gentleness of it.</p><p>“Of the foundation of Almyra,” he says. The shimmer of rain is the accompanying music for his words. “It is said Fódlan was brought up from the water, but Almyra had always been there, sun-drenched. One tale says it was made human-like from the bones of the world: first its mountains like legs, then the prairies like a stomach—”</p><p>He reads another, and another, and another, until the clouded light of the late afternoon dims and Byleth drifts off into a half-meditation half-nap. Then he reclines on the unevenly planed floor and stares up the pergola, eyes following the complex twines of moonflower and ivy.</p><p>To travel – yes, to travel would still be nice. He doesn’t deny the prickle that still sits at the base of his spine, to hope to see more of the world than the hard realities of war and struggle he was born with. But he would have a home first. That way, once they do travel – they can have something waiting for their return.</p><p>One year, they had promised each other. One year of peace.</p><p>No haste. He is an archer; he knows there is virtue in patience, in drawing the bowstring to his cheek and waiting until the path is clear. The flight of the arrow is a rush, free and wonderful; but once it lands, it will be judged by its mark.</p><p>Making sure she is soundly asleep, he grabs a shirt, and walks to Tanaras. Its silvery surface is shuddering with rain, reflecting the gloomy, clouded sky above with rippling alterations, but the water is warmer than the air. He strips and folds his already-damp clothing under the cover of wide burdock leaves, and then dives into the clear depths of the lake without a second thought.</p><p>The rain sounds different underwater. It’s a series of deep, resonating thuds, a low background noise of the storm. When he reaches the surface again, coming up to the centre of Tanaras, he can no longer feel where the lake ends and the rain begins. It all becomes a curtain of fogged glass, clear water and grey skies alike.</p><p>He dives again, his heart swelling with directionless gratitude. This – <em>this – </em>the chill on his skin and the slick parting of water at the push of his shoulder. This is joy in its essence, the shining happiness of little things still granted freely, even to men like him.</p><p>Something pulls him to the centre, a desire for as much space and open air as he can fill his expanding chest with: <em>thank you, o goddess, </em>he prays soundlessly under the masses of grey lakewater, <em>thank you for Tanaras and autumn rain and the gift of peace.</em></p><p>Silver light shines at the rocky bed of the lake, and he dives deeper – shadows streak through his fingers as he reaches out, curious, strangely calm –</p><p>A muffled sound reaches him through the water.</p><p>He pull up, head swivelling back to look at it: and he was <em>wrong </em>because <em>that </em>is joy, <em>that </em>is the happiness and relief that live settled between his ribs, Byleth’s bare figure at the shore and the seafoam-green flash of her hair. He swings his arms to reach her, laughing under his breath, heartbeat wild with both exertion and joy. “I thought you were asleep!”</p><p>“You thought,” she says, and dives to meet him midway.</p><p>They crash into each other, limbs tangling in the water like twining seaweed. Her skin is silky against his, their scars gliding smoothly against each other. He closes his arms around her, she moves to do the same a heartbeat after; she kisses him first, damp and still bathed in moonflower scent, and he goes limp and pliant under the sheer relief of it.</p><p>“Can you tell the goddess,” he asks when they break for breath, “that I am– I could <em>burst</em> with happiness, and that I wanted to give my thanks?”</p><p>“I will,” she says seriously and kisses him again.</p><p><em>I love you, </em>he thinks, breathless, holding tight to her arms, twining his hand through the seafoam of her hair. <em>I love you. I want for nothing, goddess, nothing at all but for this to last.</em></p><p>(Lodged deep in the bedrock of Tanaras, the sword shines for him a while longer; then it dims and falls back into the depths.)</p><p> </p><p>*** <strong>autumn to winter</strong></p><p> </p><p>The thorny blackberry vines bear sweet, sticky fruit, and they stuff their new pantry with jam. He hunts the forest for small sour apples, gathers wild strawberries, dries pine needles to mix into her tea; on market days, he travels into town and haggles with farmers for spice and flour. One day, he gathers elderberries and shows her how to make a syrup.</p><p>“Careful,” he says. “It’s poison if they’re not ripe enough.”</p><p>“Of course it is,” Byleth says. Her fingers are nimble as they dance in the basket, picking out the green and red specks from the granulated black. “When did you learn this, when you were young?”</p><p>“No,” he says with a laugh. “It’s a treat at Faerghus courts. You could make wine out of them too, a very sweet one. Would you like to?”</p><p>Byleth thinks on it; her hands still on the berries, red-stained. “No,” she says. “I don’t need courtly wine here.”</p><p>He watches her for a moment, observing the shadow passing through her face. “The peasants I knew back home,” he offers eventually, very gently, “made moonshine out of potatoes. We could try that instead?”</p><p>The shadow passes. Byleth nods and gives him a small smile.</p><p> </p><p>***</p><p>
  <strong>winter</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>When the snow falls, it buries them waist-high in their little house; and they bury themselves in books. Pantry stuffed to the brim, they bake sweet cakes for tea, and share it over old, dusty tomes dragged over from the monastery.</p><p>“Would you like to hear the legend of Tanaras?” he asks one evening, as Byleth pours the old wax into a candle form, and she nods. “So - you know that this is an old place.”</p><p>“The oldest,” she says. “So the monks told me.”</p><p>“They were right,” he says, leaning over the beautifully illuminated tome. “Another legend has it that the goddess lifted Fódlan from the sea-bottom, do you remember? Do you think that’s true?”</p><p>“I never asked,” she says, and motions him to continue reading. He laughs under his breath at her impatience.</p><p>“It’s actually important here. When Fódlan was raised, it says, the goddess needed something to pin it to the surface. So she hollowed the continent in one spot, a nail-hole. Then she pinned it together to the ocean bed, like an axis of the world. And, through a miracle of the goddess, that axis bore a sword.”</p><p>“Bore it,” repeats Byleth. He smiles.</p><p>“Apparently so. See – it says so right here.”</p><p>“So there is a sword in Tanaras?” she asks, and he remembers another sword in her hands; and how, with trembling fingers, she broke its bloodied edge bone by bone.</p><p>He rolls his shoulders, shaking off the memory. “Yes. But it has never been drawn. Those destined to be kings see it revealed to them, and some even come close, but no-one managed to take it out just yet. It is meant to be the great balance-bringer. The one thing that will pull the world together, when it will most need it. If it were ever a weapon more powerful than the Sword of the Creator, it is the sword of Tanaras. The first sword, or the maker of kings.”</p><p>Byleth quiets for a long moment. Shadows dance on their walls, snow falling thick and silent beyond the quivering reflections of their windows.</p><p>“Imagine,” she says softly, “how different it would be if I bore that sword instead.”</p><p>He says, without a pause or hesitation, “No different at all.”</p><p>Byleth smiles. Reaching out across the table, she takes his dying candle scrap from its thorn and replaces it with a gloriously tall, freshly made yellow taper.</p><p>“Tell another one,” she says.</p><p>
  
</p><p>*** <strong>winter to spring</strong></p><p>
  
</p><p>His muscles grow stiff indoor, so soon he ploughs a corridor to a small forest clearing and makes an archery range. She leads him through an old routine, and the unexpected throwback makes them laugh; but then he goes through four dozen arrows and grows even more restless, legs aching with disuse, mind craving a novelty. Then he finds a few flaying knives and has an <em>idea.</em></p><p>“Come with me,” he tells her, and she bends a questioning eyebrow, but he just laughs and goes.</p><p>Taranas is a sight in the winter: a wide plain of blueing ice, hewn with dark pine and naked oak, black and white hills framing it like they had stepped in the middle of an ink painting. He binds the knives to his boots and gives them an experimental wiggle – and then he steps into the smooth surface of the lake and <em>glides.</em></p><p>Byleth is only a step behind. She passes him in a flash of furs and then jumps in a pirouette, so effortlessly high and graceful his mouth waters with jealousy. He scrambles to chase after her, whooping gleefully in pure appreciation, until he is red and breathless and warm in every muscle.</p><p>The bind on his right foot loosens, and for a second he windmills his arms wildly, trying to keep his balance – and then he rams into the tough ice, hard enough to see stars.</p><p>And then more – a silver light calling him from under the surface. It’s bright, but not blinding, and for a moment he thinks he can see – rising up from the icy depths, a sword –</p><p>The ice cracks under him.</p><p>Strong arms scoop him off the ice, pushing them both far away from the cracking rift in one impossibly quick, smooth motion. The crackle grows behind them, the volume of it rising until it becomes thunderous: thick sheets of ice breaking down to reveal blueing-green water.</p><p>“That,” says Byleth, breathing heavily at his side, “was dangerous.”</p><p>“We forgot about the thaw,” he says helplessly, and then begins to giggle. Byleth’s lips shiver.</p><p>“That we did,” she concedes, deadpan. He throws his arms around her, laughing, and she kisses him to make him stop, but all it accomplishes is her own chuckling changes to laughter.</p><p>“Aren’t you glad we never had anything <em>responsible</em> to do?” he asks, unable to contain his own giggling. Byleth shoves an elbow into his side. It doesn’t help. </p><p>As they stagger home, tired and wet and bruised and still chuckling, the thundering of icesheets breaking still behind them, he thinks he can hear spring birds singing.</p><p>
  
</p><p>***</p><p>
  <strong>spring</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>With barely a touch of sunlight, the bushes around the house have grown so much that last year’s effort has been completely undone. He is fighting with the viciously persistent holly as he hears it: the deafening beats of leathery wings coming closer and closer.</p><p>He stills, crouching low on the ground. His hand grips the shears a bit tighter as he looks through the shrub.</p><p>The wyverns that lands in front of their house are black like velvet, save a single one – with scales of glittering pearls. The Almyran gold drips from the saddles and riders like a sunlit waterfall. Their bows are made of blackened cedar, all larger than his, and well-used; but none more obviously so than the bone-ridged Failnaught, strung across the back of the first rider.</p><p>Khalid, King of Unification has chosen to pay them a visit.</p><p>He watches as the man who came to be known as Heaven Piercer slides down his white wyvern in one graceful motion. Byleth looks up at him from her rocking chair, face still.</p><p>“Claude,” she says, and her voice is old and emotionless.</p><p>If the king shivers at all at the cool welcome, there is no sign of it. “Teach,” he greets, warm like the sun he flew under. “We’ve been missing you in Garreg Mach. Things aren’t the same with you around, you know?”</p><p>“No, I can’t imagine they are,” says Byleth. “Why are you here, Claude?”</p><p>The king feigns offence with a broad gesture. “Would you believe me I’ve come to keep you company, dear Archbishop? I can imagine you’ve had a lonely winter.”</p><p>“No,” Byleth says, pointedly. “Ashe was with me every day.”</p><p>“I see,” says Claude, and something goes through his gilded surface like a minute ripple. As if an insect landed upon it. “And where would Lord Lonato be, then?”</p><p>“He chose not to bear that name,” Byleth says. “You know that, Claude. Why are you here?”</p><p>Claude flicks a gloved hand. The wyverns behind him, save his own pearl-white mount, take flight; Ashe can feel the sudden wind as they beat their wings to climb up. Through the noise he barely catches a soft, “I hoped to speak with you.”</p><p>The pause that follow is thick, heavy.</p><p>“Speak,” Byleth says, and then amends it with, “Please.”</p><p>“I’m negotiating a trade deal with Sreng,” Claude says. “Their conditions aren’t— well, let’s say there’s room for improvement. They’re under the impression that because I focus most of my attention on Almyra, they can get away with robbing the north for all their money’s worth and I won’t notice. Of course free unobstructed trade would be the goal, but not at the expense of people from former Faerghus. You see where I’m going with this, Teach?”</p><p>“No,” says Byleth, and even from a distance Ashe can see a glitter in Claude’s eye.</p><p>“Allow me to surprise you, then. You see—”</p><p>“No,” Byleth says again, tighter. “I will not hold these negotiations for you, Claude. Why are you <em>really </em>here?”</p><p>Another long, heavy pause. “Let me try this again,” Claude says. “You look lovely, Teach. Winter suits you. How about moving a little further north for a little bit?”</p><p>“<em>Claude,</em>” Byleth says, in a tone that Ashe knows well as <em>my patience is vast, but you’re skirting the edge. </em>The chuckle that the king gives is almost fond.</p><p>“Yes. I know. I had to try even so.”</p><p>Something shifts in Byleth’s face, a soft, almost imperceptible change. “You haven’t changed one bit, have you?” she asks. “Does the truth still burn you?”</p><p>The ripple that goes through his gilded surface is stronger now. Ashe wants to clear his throat - make his presence known – but something about Claude’s stiff shoulders gives him pause. It reminds him of his archer training, of time spent aiming. An arrow is only as good as its mark.</p><p>“I know what you must be thinking,” Claude says, “but I never once lied to you.”</p><p>Byleth smiles a thoroughly unamused smile. “Don’t begin now, King Khalid.”</p><p>Claude takes a step forward, his gilded pauldrons catching light. He is easily the brightest thing in sight, a star taken flesh; even the warm gold of buttercups and dandelions dims to greying yellow in comparison. “I had to leave,” he says in a low voice. “And I had to keep my mouth shut. If the word got out – Fódlan couldn’t fight <em>two </em>invasions at once. My brothers would have—“</p><p>“Why are you here, Claude?” Byleth interrupts him, and for the moment Ashe thinks he can see the King of Unification quake.</p><p>A lark trills above them; a joyful, carefree call.  </p><p>Claude says, “I am marrying in the summer.”</p><p>Two sudden emotions grip Ashe’s heart at the same time. An overwhelming relief to see the man gone, removed from his position of endless threat; and terror all the same because <em>why </em>would an engaged king revisit his old love if not for—</p><p>“Congratulations,” Byleth says, evenly. Ashe does not see her face. “Forgive us if we miss the wedding, but I have no desire to return to court.”</p><p>Claude scoffs into his glove, as if impatient. “No— do you not understand, or do you just want to hear me say it?” He takes a long, deep breath, as if reading himself for a dive. “I have just honour enough not to shame my wife with a mistress. So before I chose to condemn those <em>feelings</em> of mine to a fiery death – I had to know.” He takes a step forward, gilded hand extending towards her. “Byleth – will you come north with me? There are things I’d like to tell you.”</p><p>Ashe is frozen. He watches in numb silence as his wife turns white, her hands gripping tight at the edges of the book. Her voice, when she finally speaks, croaks with her old indifference – but it is only a mask now, cracking open to reveal something raw.</p><p>“<em>No</em>,” she says. “If you have anything to tell me, say it here and now.”</p><p>The King of Unification slowly sinks to his knees before her. An emerald catches light in the sun, bright and piercing like a will-of-the-wisp. “I offered it to you once before,” he says, “and the sight of it on your finger— I thought I wouldn’t have the strength to leave. If you let me, I’ll give you a crown to match.”</p><p>Byleth doesn’t speak. Her eyes go wide, two clear pools of sea-green in the paleness of her face.</p><p>“I’ll give you the world twice over,” Claude continues, his words coming more rushed now, a stream of eloquence to blot out her silence. “Every man, woman, and child in Fódlan and Almyra will know the tales of the Queen of Dawn. Her strength, her kindness, her beauty – and her forgiveness. They will bow before you, and your word will be law. The change you will bring, my love – the peace that will last after this war, that will bear your name – you know this is right, don’t you? You and me, Teach – didn’t we change the world already? I told you once that together we could do anything—”</p><p>“That,” Byleth says, her chest heaving as if she were holding in a bout of sickness, “is a serenade to a country, not a woman.”</p><p>For a moment, Claude is silent. Then he picks up, voice going soft. “I will risk my mother’s wrath and wade into her pond to gather moon-lilies for you.”</p><p>Byleth shivers. It pours new energy into the king’s gilded frame. “ And then— and then I will scout the north until I can find a flower of living ice to drop it at your feet, hoping to all gods in heavens that if it could ever melt in your hands, then so could the contempt you hold for me.”</p><p>“I hold no contempt for you,” Byleth says very quietly, and Ashe’s heart sinks deep into his stomach. Claude leans in on his knees, the emerald in his hand burning a verdant light.</p><p>“Then— would you return to my side?”</p><p>Something snaps in her – a bowstring pulled too far back.</p><p>“You <em>left</em> me,” she says. “You used me! For <em>years</em> I struggled between Enbarr and Fhirdiad and Derdriu, with only your letters as instruction— it was <em>your </em>world to build, Claude, not mine! I had never wanted to be at the helm of it! And look what destruction I brought!”</p><p>The words quiver in the air, familiar in Ashe’s ears; and there is still so much more her rasping voice does not say, of assassinations and friends turned spies, one ignorant treasury decision sparking famine in already-impoverished land; and then, he remembers, peasant uprising chanting the late Emperor’s name. <em>We only switched one tyrant for another. She is only a fighter, not a ruler.</em> The king’s face has gone blank.</p><p>“So you’ve said,” he says, “five years ago, when you returned the ring.”</p><p>Then – he leans down on his knees, in a bow so low his forehead touches the stone that <em>Ashe </em>had carved. There is a sharp intake of a breath – Byleth’s.</p><p>“I am sorry,” he says, low and formal. “I beg your forgiveness, my queen.”</p><p>Byleth’s lip shivers. <em>An arrow, </em>Ashe thinks as he stands up from his crouch, the movement instantly catching her eye, <em>is only as good as its mark. </em>Still to wait, as another man does his utmost to steal his <em>wife</em>, even his royal pride tossed away –</p><p>Her fingers curl up around the book on her lap.</p><p>“I forgive you,” she says in a voice that is barely more than a whisper. “I know who you are, Claude von Riegan. I always have. Stand up now, please.”</p><p>He obeys without a heartbeat’s delay. His golden cape unfurls down his back as he straightens up. “Byleth—”</p><p>Her eyes slide off him to find Ashe in the shrubbery. And Ashe is familiar with grief, by now, and still—</p><p>“No,” she says. “Not in this lifetime. I could have been your wife once, but I will never be your queen.”</p><p>The king goes still. For a split second, the gold ripples down to its core –  Ashe sees the green nestled at its heart, the young eyes that trailed the professor from classroom to classroom with an inexhaustible well of questions.</p><p>Then it shuts down, with a clink of a gilded cage. “I see,” he says, collected. “Then, I hope, you won’t mind handing over the sword?”</p><p>“The Sword of the Creator,” says Byleth, “has been destroyed.”</p><p>Claude makes a curt gesture. “No,” he says. “Not the Sword of the Creator. The <em>sword. </em>The royal sword. The one old enough not to have a name. I know you moved to Tanaras to protect it.”</p><p>“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” says Byleth. Claude scoffs.</p><p>“<em>Please, </em>Teach,” he says, “do you take me for a fool? I had Lysithea and Linhardt develop a searching spell. The chosen of the sword lives here, in this house. If you do not care for power or royalty, why would you hold on to it?”</p><p>In dead silence, his tight inhale is loud as a whip. “You know Fódlan will never truly unite unless they accept me, and that they’ll accept an Almyran as a king unless I have a proven divine right to it. So if you refuse your bishophood <em>and </em>my proposal, will you at least hand over the damned sword?”</p><p>Byleth is sharp, Ashe thinks, and he loves her for it; and because he loves her, for this moment he wishes she were not.</p><p>Her eyes widen impossibly, pupils shrinking to two pinpricks amid the foam. She rises from the rocking chair, and the king takes a step back; for a moment she is the Ashen Demon. “You came here for the sword.”</p><p>It is not a question.</p><p>Claude stands tall, straight, golden. “I came here for you,” he tells her. “But if I cannot have you to legitimise me, the sword will do. So hand it over.”</p><p>For a heartbeat, there is violence in the air. Byleth’s fists quiver convulsively at her sides.</p><p>Then her eyes dart down. She crouches to pick up the book that fell off her lap, fingers unclasping to straighten the pages.</p><p>“It is not here,” she tells him. “And that is the last thing I will say.”</p><p>“Of course,” he says, stiffly. “When did you ever make anything easy for me, eh, Teach? A challenge until the bitter end.”</p><p>Something within Byleth quivers. “I forgive you,” she says, and it feels like these words push their way up from the black depths of her stomach, unwilling and bloody from squishing through the pressure. “But do not come here ever again.”</p><p>Claude’s eyes flash with something Ashe cannot recognise, something painful and regretful and desperate. “Teach—”</p><p>“Congratulations on your engagement,” she says. “Goodbye, Claude.”</p><p>Then, clutching the book to her chest, she disappears in the house.</p><p>“Byleth,” Claude calls after her. His voice cracks. “Byleth!”</p><p>Only a lark answers him, joyful and careless and jarring.</p><p>The king had never <em>thrown away</em> his pride, Ashe realises; he had fed it, like all his royal life piece by piece, to the gaping maw of his ambition. The earnestness in him had not, in all likelihood, been a lie either. There had been little doubt in anyone’s mind, ever since the cape he’d worn was still dandelion-yellow and not sun-gold, that Claude von Riegan loved Byleth Eisner; only he would grow to love something else more.</p><p>Ashe has had <em>enough</em>. He walks through the shrubbery until his own grey hair catches sunlight, shears in hand and holly leaves caught in his shirt. He is not a sight to behold, he knows; dirtied, mussed, freckled with the sun. An Ubert peasant.</p><p>“I think you should leave,” he says, and his own voice sounds strange in his ears: hard and ungentle and adult.</p><p>Claude’s head swivels to look at him, the mask smoothly sliding into place.</p><p>“Lord Lonato,” he greets, cold. “Apologies for overstaying my welcome. Still, I’m glad I could find you. If only to see what exactly is missing in myself as a man.”</p><p>Ashe glances at him – <em>is this what ambitious men turn into? – </em>and then redirects his stare to his wyvern, searching for a kind thing to say. “It was kind of you to seek resolution of your feelings <em>before </em>marriage,” he finally offers.</p><p>Claude gives him an odd look. Then he sighs, a thoroughly unamused smile pulling at his lips. “<em>Of course</em> she would. I don’t suppose <em>you</em> happen to know where the sword is?”</p><p>“Not here,” says Ashe. “The legend has it that it’s at the bottom of Tanaras.” And, just because it bothers him, he adds, “We didn’t choose this place because of the legend, Claude. We only hoped for peace.”</p><p>“Peace, huh? This is peace?” Claude asks, his throat working as if he swallowed something thick. “Very well. My men are searching the lake now. I will now stop disturbing your domestic bliss<em>.</em>” He turns with a flash of the coat, and Ashe thinks he can see him pocket the ring; but it could have just as well been ground under his heavy armoured boot. “The sooner I find the sword, the sooner I will stop haunting the place. Tell her that from me, please.”</p><p>“I think,” Ashe says, and keeps his voice even, “that you have said enough today.”</p><p>“It may be that way. Still, I’m after a peace of my own. A less selfish version of it, perhaps.” <em>Or more ravenously arrogant, </em>supplies the piece of Ashe that doesn’t bother with kindness, but he does not voice it. Instead he watches as Claude climbs the gilded stirrup. “Until we meet again, Lord Lonato!”</p><p>Ashe waits until the white wyvern begins its ascent. <em>A patient, well-measured arrow will strike true. </em>Then, at the border of audibility, he loosens the string. “You will never find the sword,” he cries. “It shines for those that renounce ambition!”</p><p>Before the last beat of the wings takes him too high, Ashe can see the King of Unification’s face twist violently – and does not bat away the sense of satisfaction that washes over him at the sight.</p><p> </p><p>***</p><p> </p><p>He finds her leaned against the pantry door, forehead flat on the rough wood. It smells of crunched herbs and dirt; of smoke and unleavened bread and elderberry syrup where it had soaked into the planks, and the wild garlic salt on strung venison. Of mushrooms, dried and braided into wreaths to hang at the door. Of the home they had built, step by gentle step, because neither of them was born into high court.</p><p>Her shoulders are not shaking, but she doesn’t turn to face him, and that is enough for him to know.</p><p>He embraces her from behind. As his wrist comes around to rest against her chin, hot tears trickle along it. Ashe’s heart swells in his chest; the relief is his, in knowing that she would choose him over all kings of the world, but the grief is still hers.</p><p>“Byleth,” he whispers, wrapping himself around her as tight as he can, holly leaves prickling his skin. “Byleth, it’s all right to hurt.”</p><p>She cranes her head to look at him, face glistening with tears. “He didn’t <em>want me,</em>” she says – almost whimpers – and Ashe’s heart breaks at the sight.</p><p>“He did,” he says. “He just wanted power more.”</p><p>Byleth shiver in his arms – and then turns to bury her head in his chest, desperate, shuddering cries shaking her entire body. The pantry swallows up her muffled sounds.</p><p>Ashe’s own eyes prickle. Last time—</p><p>Last time it was the inciters of the rebellion waiting for the execution. Lonato’s western lands, well-managed and fertile before the war, had fallen into poverty after the deaths of both the lord and heir; and when the matters did not improve after the Queen of Dawn took the throne, the peasants rose up.</p><p>She had arrived, haggard and wrung, little colour left on her face, to pacify the rebellion. <em>I don’t know how to do it, Ashe, </em>she said. <em>I lived through this five times now, and we do not have the grain to feed them. We must kill the leaders or slaughter their entire militia.</em></p><p><em>They are my father’s retainers, </em>Ashe said. <em>Good men. Desperate, but loyal to their people.</em></p><p>Her eyes were empty.</p><p><em>Either that or all of them, </em>she said, cold and unfeeling; the demon mercenary.</p><p><em>If we do this, </em>he said, <em>I have no right to call myself anybody’s lord. Can you not see any way to save them, Professor? What about my house, my grounds? Soldiers’ pay and their horses? Let’s sell those and feed them.</em></p><p><em>It will not be enough, </em>Byleth said. <em>They must die, or we will be forced to quash the entire rebellion.</em></p><p>That was the first time he saw her: haunted, exhausted, quaking under decisions for which she had no preparation and no understanding, and <em>hurt.</em></p><p>She had already won them the war; wouldn’t that be enough?</p><p><em>My men will capture them, </em>said Ashe, every word like a stone bound to his ankles before stepping into the water, <em>and then disband. </em></p><p><em>I will execute them myself, </em>Byleth said.</p><p>He put a hand on her shoulder, and she looked at it – and then him – like he were the first living thing to touch her in months.</p><p><em>No, you won’t, </em>Ashe said.</p><p>He cradles her to his heart, her tears staining his already dew-moist shirt. “You’re here with me,” he whispers, threading his fingers through her scalp. “We’re here together. We’ll find a way to give back to the world yet. But not now. And not— not his way.”</p><p>“Ashe,” she whispers. “Tell me – not as a man, but as a lord. Should I have gone with him?”</p><p>He shivers, but lets the hurt hit him, bears the brunt of it flush against her. “I can’t,” he tells her. “I’m not a lord. And if I ever have been, then I would still be a man first.”</p><p>“Is it selfish?” she asks.</p><p>“Yes,” he says, gently. “But you must take care of yourself before you take care of the world. And you and I, what we have to offer – it’s different from Claude.”</p><p>She goes limp in his arms, sagging like a rag doll with strings cut loose. “It’s a <em>good</em> ideal,” she says. “Good ambition. One worth fighting for. There was a reason I shouldered it for years.”</p><p>Ashe thinks of Lonato; the <em>true </em>Lord Lonato, the one that had perished at her hand. Of a restaurant giving out free meals. Of a man reaching out to a little thief; <em>here, </em>he’s saying, <em>that little squiggly shape means: A. </em></p><p>“There’s more than one way of saving the world, Byleth,” he says, and kisses her hair.</p><p>He holds her while she weeps for another man, another life; and for the death of the dream that she had once held with that man, gilded and beautiful and impassioned for things that were not her.</p><p>Sylvain once asked if jealousy tormented him; but Ashe knows in his bones that she loves him, knew it even before she bade the golden king goodbye. But there is more than one way to save the world, and more than one way to love, and she loves the king like one would a falling star, or a raging fire; it shines and it consumes, and for all its brightness it will one day devour itself.</p><p>Ashe thinks of Claude’s forehead against the stone, and cannot hate the man.<em> Does he know?</em> he wonders. Does he, himself, know that it has been more than the pride that he’d fed to his ambition, but his very <em>love,</em> and the whole of him will follow soon?</p><p>And – he is <em>glad </em>and he is <em>grateful </em>for the rocking chair under the ivy-twined pergola, the book half-open on the lap, and the earthen cup of tea going cold on the breeze. Sometime in the future, they could travel; sometime further still, they could return. She could teach the children again, and he run a restaurant. And the life would go on, peaceful, grief sleeping gentle in the depths of their hearts. Like the sword in stone.</p><p>It’s not meant to ever be drawn, he thinks; <em>that </em>is the true secret of Tanaras, the Lake of the Trial. A sword unsought, unneeded. A tool of grief lodged deep into the bones of the earth, pinning it in place, but no longer fighting.</p><p>The true king will rise unarmed.</p><p>“Ashe,” Byleth says, and draws away. Her face is puffy, red, hurting, <em>relieved</em>. “Will you make us tea?”</p><p> </p><p>*** <strong>spring to summer</strong></p><p> </p><p>He crunches old jasmine flowers for their tea. The sky looms low as the spring showers bathe the wild land he calls a garden. The moonflowers open over the pergola, drinking in the rain and shade.</p><p>Then the rain passes, and the ribbons of fog rise up from the dark treetops below them. The air is crisp, clear, buds and twigs bursting with eagerness to blossom.</p><p>A small hand reaches for his. It’s cold, hesitant, and he looks up to see Byleth staring forward, hair damp and eyes misty with uncertainty.</p><p>“Do you think,” she says, “we could stay another year?”</p><p>Something blossoms in his chest. It prickles at him like holly leaves, like blackberry vines; beautiful, painful, soon to bear fruit.</p><p>“There’s nothing in the world that I would love more,” he says, and Byleth smiles.</p><p> </p><p>***</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>… Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran,</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>And, leaping down the ridges lightly, plunged</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>Among the bulrush-beds, and clutch'd the sword,</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>And strongly wheel'd and threw it. The great brand</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>Made lightnings in the splendour of the moon,</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>And flashing round and round, and whirl'd in an arch,</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>Shot like a streamer of the northern morn,</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>Seen where the moving isles of winter shock</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>By night, with noises of the northern sea.</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>So flash'd and fell the brand Excalibur:</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>And caught him by the hilt, and brandish'd him</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>Three times, and drew him under in the mere.</em>
  </p>
  <p> </p>
  <p>Alfred, Lord Tennyson, <em>Morte d’Arthur</em></p>
</blockquote>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>
  <b>Claudeleth is not endgame.</b>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>If you want to yell at me now, well <i>gestures broadly at the comment section</i> please, have at.</p><p>THIS SITS OUTSIDE OF MY HEADCANON OKAY. I LIKE ASHE. I WANTED TO WRITE ME SOME ASHELETH. AND ALSO OTHER STUFF HAPPENED. SORRY, OKAY. BUT ALSO TOTALLY NOT.</p><p>(Or, if you want, you could yell at me in my Claudeleth writer server, ask me about it~)</p><p>  <a href="https://twitter.com/wearwind_ao3">Yell at me on Twitter!</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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